RoboPhot: It's in the Details!

You need to CLICK HERE and then zoom in. Zoom way in. And then zoom way out. And then think about how this type of photo could be used in online education.

This detail is achieved by taking 600 shots over 30 minutes and then tiling the image together in a supersized graphic file. The effect is breathtaking! And our favorite e-word: engaging!

Be warned: RoboPhot is addictive!

Watch to learn more!

Let's Get Critical!

Serious eLearning Manifesto

From the venerable Stephen Downes' OLDaily, the Serious eLearning Manifesto:

We believe that learning technology offers the possibility for creating uniquely valuable learning experiences. 

We also believe, with a sense of sadness and profound frustration, that most elearning fails to live up to its promise. 

We further believe that current trends evoke a future of only negligible improvement in elearning design—unless something radical is done to bend the curve. 

Finally, we have concluded that in order to elevate elearning to the height of its promise, we need to begin with a personal commitment to a new set of standards. 

Through continuous assessment of learner performance, the elearning experience can optimize use of the learner’s time, individualize the experience for full engagement, address needs, optimize practice, and prepare for transfer of learning to performance proficiency. 

Through our work in developing elearning experiences and helping others do the same, we believe that we need to go beyond typical elearning to the values and characteristics of Serious eLearning ...

Please watch this insightful and inspiring hour-long Google Hangout with the Manifesto team:
     

Read it in full HERE. And then, please—go sign!

Critical Thinking!

In honor of Alabama A&M University's 2014 QEP theme of "Critical Thinking" ... a little humor!

And one of our QEP flyers! (I designed this one!)

Tuition Net Increases to Poorest Students Threaten Access to Higher Ed

I read with great interest Jon Marcus and Holly K. Hacker's Colleges Are Quietly Shifting The Burden Of Tuition Increases To Poor Families from the Hechinger Report on Huffington Post. I don't want to editorialize the issues raised specifically in the article in the context discussed, but want to point out that this entire issue—the evolving landscape of access to higher education as impacted by issues discussed herein—provides profound context for the unfolding discussions regarding MOOCs and their role in higher education.

I believe that the most imminent threat MOOCs present to traditional higher education is the allure of high-quality free/low-cost degrees for the highest achieving, most independent and self-motivated learners. In addition to potentially losing them out of enrollment and retention data sets, we stand to lose their power as peer learners to enhance learning outcomes for everyone enrolled.

Invasion of the MOOCs: The Promise and Perils of Massive Open Online Courses

Invasion of the MOOCs: The Promise and Perils of Massive Open Online Courses is one of the first collections of essays about the phenomenon of “Massive Online Open Courses.” Unlike accounts in the mainstream media and educational press, Invasion of the MOOCs is not written from the perspective of removed administrators, would-be education entrepreneurs/venture capitalists, or political pundits. Rather, this collection of essays comes from faculty who developed and taught MOOCs in 2012 and 2013, students who participated in those MOOCs, and academics and observers who have first hand experience with MOOCs and higher education. These twenty-one essays reflect the complexity of the very definition of what is (and what might in the near future be) a “MOOC,” along with perspectives and opinions that move far beyond the polarizing debate about MOOCs that has occupied the media in previous accounts. Toward that end, Invasion of the MOOCs reflects a wide variety of impressions about MOOCs from the most recent past and projects possibilities about MOOCs for the not so distant future.

You can buy the print copy (or download the free PDF version) HERE.

Engagement and Feedback

We're always looking for ways to engage the learner in content and to gain feedback on how they are progressing with their learning. Check out Edudemic's great short list of practical tips for accomplishing both in your brick-and-mortar or online classroom!

New to MOOCs?

Catch up here!

Moment in Meme

Free Online University of the People Gains National Accreditation

Some said it would never happen. But now the free online University of the People has gained accreditation just in time for its first graduating class. Read about it HERE.

And stay tuned!

Sloan-C e-Teaching Certificate

While the Instructional Design certificate programs I discussed in my last post are academic programs comprised of credit-bearing courses, there are also e-teaching certificates that are less rigorous, less costly and a lot easier to acquire.

Sloan Consortium offers two such certificates with their Teaching and Advanced Teaching Certificates. Each is comprised of a series of workshops (as opposed to more academically rigorous credit-bearing academic courses) that include a required foundation course and a handful of elective workshops.

The cost of these certificates is an allowable use of Title III funding for professional development! If you or your faculty are interested in acquiring credentialed high quality education in the area of e-teaching, these certificates are a powerful addition to both your professional toolbox and your vitae, as well as a sound first step in the direction becoming a fully credentialed e-learning professional!

ID Hunter: Instructional Design Graduate certificates

Today, I received an email from the creator of ID Hunter promoting this great resource for comparing graduate certificates in instructional design, e-learning and related topics. Clearly, its author spent considerable time compiling the most critical data for a side-by-side comparison of options.

Any educator who wants to take their course development and delivery to the next level would be well served by a certificate's inherent opportunities for in-depth study, research and practice, even if not teaching fully online. The best classroom courses also incorporate technology and a blended or hybrid approach to teaching and learning. A certificate can also formalize your credentials as an e-learning professional!

Rubrics Made Even Easier!

In the world of assessment, there is no greater tool than the rubric! Well-constructed rubrics both qualify and quantify the assessment criteria and are a key communication tool between teachers and learners.

Do you need some help streamlining your grading rubric? Edudemic is here to help with no less than SIX online rubric creation tools!

Check them out HERE!

The Power of Graphics in Learning

Can a picture paint a thousand words? Can a photo impart instruction, procedure or information?

What do you think about this graphical recipe? Food for thought! (Yes, I admit it! Pun intended!)

You can engage learners with their content by using carefully chosen graphics to supplement your reading and viewing assignments, lectures and discussions. There are lots of free images out there that do NOT hold a copyright ... but a copyleft! That's a kind of license that allows you free use of some content! Also, there's the Creative Commons, public domain, and the old-fashioned thrill of designing your own graphics, with or without the help of expert digital media support!

There are lots of libraries to peruse linked in my LORs (Learning Object Repositories) section of links. Check them out!

Personalized Professional Learning: A Google Hang-out Roundtable

I attended this Google Hangout roundtable hosted by Ben Wilkoff just today and can't resist sharing it here!

How are you managing your own professional learning? And how can I help? Check out the Learning Remodeled Web site too!

 

Grade Change: Sloan-C's 2013 Report on Online Learning in U.S. Higher Ed

Sloan Consortium has released its 2013 annual survey of higher education administrators and is making it available for free download.

This 38-page report is titled Grade Change: Tracking Online Education in the United States, 2013 and surveys administrators specifically in the realm of higher education.

I found this snippet from the summary especially interesting: (bold emphasis is mine in last paragraph)

Are Learning Outcomes in Online Comparable to Face-to-Face?  

Background: The reports in this series have consistently found a growing majority of chief academic officers rate the learning outcomes for online education “as good as
or better” than those for face-to-face instruction.  

The evidence: The 2013 results show a small decrease in the percentage of academic leaders who view the learning outcomes for online instruction as the same of better than face-to-face instruction. 

• The percent of academic leaders rating the learning outcomes in online education as the same or superior to those in face-to-face instruction had grown from 57 in 2003 to 77 percent in 2012. The upward trend was reversed this year, with a dip to 74 percent.

• The proportion of academic leaders who believe the learning outcomes for online education are inferior to those of face-to-face instruction increased from 23 percent last year to 26 percent this year. 

• Academic leaders at institutions with online offerings remain positive about the relative learning outcomes for online courses; all of the decrease can be attributed to leaders at institutions without online offerings becoming more negative. 

Happy reading!

What We're Learning from Online Education

"Daphne Koller is enticing top universities to put their most intriguing courses online for free -- not just as a service, but as a way to research how people learn. With Coursera (cofounded by Andrew Ng), each keystroke, quiz, peer-to-peer discussion and self-graded assignment builds an unprecedented pool of data on how knowledge is processed."

Assessment: Telling Our Stories

I am in the process of preparing a presentation for an assessment conference in June to be held at Alabama A&M University. I am very excited about the opportunities to both attend and present at this annual event.

I am speaking on the subject of MOOCs, and whether they can or should be incorporated into our own curricula. The idea of marrying two seemingly disparate entities (MOOCs and traditional higher education) is not unlike struggling with the relationship of qualitative and quantitative assessment strategies.

And it has me thinking about the nature of assessment. It has me wondering how I can convey to the audience my concern for the over-reliance on data that I observe, without giving the impression that I don't value the data at all. Quite the contrary! I'm a scientist, a mathematician every bit as much as I am an artist and a writer. I just don't think that the data tells the entire story when it comes to the important role of assessment.

What kind of assessment, though? Are we talking institutional assessment? Program assessment? Or the assessment of teaching and learning that occurs within our institutions? So often it seems that teaching and learning are segregated in the planning and assessment processes in ways that make both more difficult to both assess and address.

But I think we're really talking about all forms of assessment here. The assessment design is so critical to the analysis of perceived outcomes that there are have to be standards of compliance on all levels. But establishing those standards doesn't have to abolish the narrative that must necessarily accompany the data.

How many of us want to be assessed on any level based purely on data? As institutions, we don't want our accrediting agencies looking only at our numbers with no consideration of the stories, efforts and the context supporting those numbers. Numbers tell a story, but it's not always the whole or even near truth. We all know that.

So when we think of student learning, we must even-handedly afford them the same opportunity for a narrative. Our numbers don't TELL our story, their merely support and document its narrative. There's no doubt that the data, the grades, the statistics all matter. But without the story, they can lead us astray. Data might make us think that a student has learned something that they really have not learned. Or that they haven't learned something that has in fact taken hold inside of them and begun to transform the way they think and process information for the rest of their lives.

One of the worst grades I ever received was on a written exam from a philosophy professor I had in freshman year. The course was all about logic. We were being taught to think logically in philosophical terms. None of us fared well on paper (luckily, that was just an exercise in compliance and those grades were dismissed in the end), but the impact of the professor's teaching on me was so profound that over 30 years later, I still remembered his name, his face and many of the things he said verbatim from our classes that semester. He was one of two professors that I remember vividly even three decades later who had profound life-long impact on my relationship to the world. Neither ever asked me a multiple choice question; one never even gave a test or quiz. They based our final grades on the conversations that they had held with each of us, the narrative that contextualized our performance data.

I was student teaching one semester. My internship grade was based on how many times I had written in my journal that semester. I don't think it was even read, as I received no feedback on its content. The entries were counted and my grade was finalized. I got a B because I had missed a week in the journal due to illness/stress. I was not allowed to retroactively journal. And all I had to show for that internship was this grade on a transcript that was the only physical record of my college experience. Even though my journal told the story of several personal breakthroughs with at-risk youth in my classes.

I want us all to remember that data without a narrative is, at best, dangerous to the mission and its objectives. At its worst, it leads us in circles or down the entirely wrong roads with our efforts.

The Web, in its infinite power, has the ability to help us deliver  BOTH our data AND our stories in ways that have increasing meaning to—and impact upon—not only the learners we serve, but ourselves as teachers. Teaching and learning can no more easily be separated than the wax and wane of the moon, or high and low tides of the ocean. You cannot measure (or assess, which is not synonymous with measurement!) one without measuring and assessing the other. Because for every measurement, there is a deeper story to tell of connection, engagement, risk, effort and ultimately, outcome.

How will we tell our own stories? How will we tell the stories of our teaching and learning? How will we support our students telling theirs? With a transcript? Or an e-portfolio? A body of work (research, art, etc.) ... ?

Because when they tell their stories, they are telling ours, too.

Fun Friday! Time for a Little Levity

Check out this hilarious story of how a learner and instructor engaged through—of all things—a question and response on a written exam!

TED redesign!

It's true! TED is redesigning its Web site and you can sign up for early access! Track the progress and sign up for updates and a sneak peek here.

If you're not familiar with TED yet, you're missing out! Check out the best and most inspiring talks on technology, entertainment and design at TED.com. Many of these talks make great content for online courses and they are always inspiring!

Passing Fads: A Retrospective View

I just received an email update from a source that I will refrain from naming out of professional courtesy because of my reaction to it. This update contained a "paper" which made some pretty bold claims about the nature of MOOCs and other "passing fads" like Khan Academy.

The source alleged incorrectly that Khan Academy is a for-profit institution trying to pass itself off as a degree-bearing academy of higher education. Anyone who knows Khan Academy well knows how inherently misled (I'm going to avoid the allegation of it being intentionally misleading and assume that intentions were good, albeit misinformed and hastily formed) the author of that paper was in making the assertion.

What worries me, though, is that there are folks new to e-learning who read this type of assertion and accept it on face value. And who has the time to dig through the background on every issue in every article we read coming through our email inbox?

Gentle reader, please know that whether MOOCs stay in their current form or whether they morph into something we will not recognize over the next decade, their impact on the higher education landscape is both irrefutable and immutable. If you find speculations (or if those speculations find you) that disparage or minimize the value, the impact or the potential of MOOCs, of LORs (Learning Object Repositories) like Khan, or of any other Web-based technological advancement that impacts our teaching and learning culture, please remember and consider this interview from scientist Clifford Stoll, who claimed in 1995 that the Internet is "not that important," "grossly oversold" and had "so little of value" that it would never take hold. Please review this post by the same fellow.

And stay tuned.

Postscript: Interestingly, Clifford Stoll presented this TED talk in 2006 titled The Call to Learn.

Volunteer to Peer Review Exemplary Courses!

It's that time of year again! Blackboard is now soliciting volunteer reviewers for the 2014 exemplary course competition! I participated as a reviewer last year and it was very enlightening! We were each given a rubric by which to evaluate each course on multiple criteria.

Participating as a reviewer afforded me the opportunity to see work developed by faculty from a diversity of academic disciplines at colleges and universities across the nation! I got some great ideas for instructional design as well as reassurances that we are using the Blackboard environment in accordance with best practice in the field of e-learning!

Sign up here to be a volunteer reviewer. And consider entering your exemplary course in this year!

On the Road: Humans Need Humans

This happens to our students every day, not just during the holidays. Students need human support as much or more than academic support. Imagine what we could accomplish if every student we taught had a human support system!

HOT TIPS: Holiday Buying Advice

Whether a learner or a teacher in the world of e-learning (and ideally, aren't we all BOTH?), there's a great chance that technology is on either your wishlist or the list of someone you love. But how to make the best decisions? It's overwhelming even for the veteran e-geek to determine that all available options are being considered and only the best possible choice made from a global technology market!

Where to turn? CNET. This site has provided the best in technology reviews for years. It's where I always start and where I always end up on those tough investment decisions.

What's on your list this year?

Newbies' Guide to Computer Symbols

THIS FABULOUS EDUDEMIC GUIDE to common computer icons/symbols is most helpful! And not just for newbies! I will link this in our resource sections for easy reference later as well.

(Viewing note: When you click on the link, the graphic will likely be too small to read the type. Your cursor will be a magnifying glass that will allow you to enlarge it and then you can scroll through the Web window to study it! The same cursor will SHRINK the graphic if it is already ENLARGED.)

Sir Ken Robinson: How to Escape Education's Death Valley

Let's Play Jeopardy!

I found this great free Jeopardy simulator that allows you to enter your own questions/answers and play this game with your students! It was a breeze to build one, too!

It could be used in a class discussion/review as well as for individuals doing self-assessment in an online environment.

What fun!

Wicked Cool App Alert!

Anyone who uses BOTH Google Drive AND Microsoft Office to create and manage documents knows the hassle of trying to made edits to an Office document on your mobile devices.

Enter Quickoffice, a free app from Google that allows you to access your Google Drive account and EDIT the Microsoft Office documents contained therein. Yes, really!

It works beautifully and my life just got a whole lot better. Big thanks to Dr. Brian Leonard for the technology tip of the week!

Blackboard accepting submissions!

Everyone familiar with Blackboard's Exemplary Course program? In addition to acknowledging and highlighting best practice in e-learning within the Blackboard community, the gallery is a great hunting ground for tips and ideas for our own course designs. I often send faculty there to peruse and browse the best of what other course developers have created so that they have a better sense of their goal.

The Exemplary Course program is now accepting submissions for 2014! Each entry is developed via a video tour of the course and a fairly extensive application for inclusion. I participated last year as a volunteer course evaluator for the program and learned so much about what Blackboard can do, in addition to getting some great e-learning ideas relevant to any LMS (Learning Management System)!

Do you have an amazing course built in Blackboard? Enter today!

MERLOT II Unveiled!

If you haven't heard of or visited MERLOT, you're missing out! It's arguably the best quality learning object repository (LOR) out there, as its contents are all peer-reviewed by traditionally accepted academic standards. And those learning objects are searchable by keyword and licensed for use in teaching and learning at no cost! The site has blossomed over time to provide a social network for e-learning professionals as well as a host of resources and services related to e-learning.

Join the MERLOT community to expand your knowledge of and access to no-cost, high-quality resources for your learners!

Video: I Will Not Let an Exam Result Decide My Fate

Don't forget that you can go "full screen" by clicking the four-cornered box in the lower right corner of the video screen! Just type the ESC key to return to the normal blog view.

State Authorization Update

We attended a statewide meeting in Montgomery, Alabama last week to discuss the state authorization issue and its latest implications for those serving online education on postsecondary levels.

For those new to the term "state authorization," this simply means the seeking and granting of permission for colleges and universities to "do business" outside of their states' boundaries. In order for us to teach online students outside of the state in which we operate, we must have permission (via a license or exemption, depending on the state) to serve the residents of each particular state represented by our students. If want to teach students in New York, we must have New York's permission to do so, either with a license or an exemption to the license.

That said, the issue very quickly gets complicated (and expensive!) as we navigate the unique and discrete requirements of each of the other forty-nine states in which we want to enroll students. The processes and costs are to be renewed at the end of each license period, which also varies by state. In the state of Alabama, as an example, an institution can expect to spend between $2,500 and $15,000 every two years to maintain license to teach Alabamians online.

In fact, the issue is so complicated that the legal mandate is yet to be set in stone. Courts have been knocking the issue around for a few years, and we do our best to keep up. In that spirit, I have added a "State Authorization" section to this blog (see navigation bar on RIGHT of screen) and will continue to add key links there that will help anyone who wants to learn more or keep a close eye on the state authorization issue as it evolves.

For the time being and for any players new to the game, I recommend a review of the history (beginning with links I've provided before generalized Web searching) and current state of the issue as well as the beginning (or continuation) of good faith efforts at compliance.

While reciprocity agreements are being negotiated and developed, state-to-state licensure is going to continue to be an issue that will require some level of documentation and investment, whether to individual states or to a collective representing an coalition of states. In either case, it's best that the relevant discussions and the consideration of processes, stakeholders and outcomes begin as soon as possible, if indeed they have not already begun.

Faculty Organizations Take on MOOCs

This article published by Campus Technology illustrates a growing anti-MOOC sentiment among faculty across public higher education. While on the one hand, there is legitimate concern for the privatization and the quality of online programs, aiming the 'quality control' issue at MOOCs as a movement—and online learning in general—seems disingenuous to me.

I don't believe it's appropriate here to throw the baby out with the bathwater with wholesale condemnation of the MOOC movement and online learning in general. While I understand the threats that the open education movement represents to public higher education in general, I believe there is great potential for the revitalization of public higher education to be realized through the thoughtful integration of open educational resources—especially MOOCs and their wide-scale accessibility—into the teaching and learning we do at public colleges and universities.

Fighting against online education and MOOCs will not serve these faculty opponents well in the long run, I predict. As long as we view public higher education and the MOOC movement as mutually exclusive, someone has to win and someone has to lose. Neither holds enough cards to claim a winning hand since traditional education has become so expensive and out of reach for so many, and in many public higher ed environments, technological integration is woefully absent. On the other hand, what MOOCs offer in affordability and accessibility cannot compensate for the limited human interaction they offer. So what's a learner to do? If I were shopping for a degree, I would choose an environment where my traditional human faculty have chosen to embrace technology and open access education, and where I would have access to the best of both worlds. The universities and faculty who make that choice for integration of traditional and online/technology-based learning will reap the greatest rewards in terms of enrollment, retention and learning outcomes. And then we have to consider our charge for preparing our learners for the real-world workforce that awaits them.

Although the private e-learning sector arguably has questionably high influence in the movement, I don't believe that privatization is really the core issue in this debate. Before we decide who else to invite to the table, we have to first decide if we ourselves are going to accept the invitation to step into the exhilarating-albeit-sometimes-scary world of new millennial e-learning and MOOCs.

The water is rising, though. And I really don't think there's going to be any option for going back.

What do you think?

Power Through Series returns!

The Power Through Series for e-course developers is back and ready for your registration! We'll be meeting weekly on Thursday afternoons from 2:00–4:00 pm (with open lab from 4:00–5:00 pm for anyone who needs extra help) from October 3 through November 21.

Won't you join us? Check out the agenda and register to attend here!

We'll be adding several more trainings to our schedule over the next day or two, but I wanted to get the word out about this series immediately! SPACE IS LIMITED so sign up now!

There have been days and days filled with busy-ness! I'll return next week! Thanks for your patience!

A quote for the duration:

Leaders are not, as we are often led to think, people who go along with huge crowds following them. Leaders are people who go their own way without caring, or even looking to see, whether anyone is following them. "Leadership qualities" are not the qualities that enable people to attract followers, but those that enable them to do without them. They include, at the very least, courage, endurance, patience, humor, flexibility, resourcefulness, stubbornness, a keen sense of reality, and the ability to keep a cool and clear head, even when things are going badly. True leaders, in short, do not make people into followers, but into other leaders.” 

John Holt, Teach Your Own

Combining The Nation's Digitized Libraries, All In One Place

Learn all about it HERE.

Six Types of Assessments (And How They're Changing!)

Want a three-to-five minute crash course in assessment models? This infographic is just for you! I'm a big fan of formative assessment. I know there are lots of controversies surrounding the legitimacy and execution of other types of assessment such as the criterion-based and norm-referenced models. I suspect the ideal lies somewhere in the dynamic hybrid that meets the needs of various learning communities but I also suspect that formative assessment plays a prominent role in any learner-centered process. The key word to remember about formative assessment is "feedback"—and lots of it. Continuous feedback has a double-edged benefit in that it helps assess both the learner's learning and the teacher's teaching, if that teacher is so tuned to read and hear feedback to their feedback. The ideal is a continuous feedback loop. With a steady, continuous communication with learners, we learn to adapt to and overcome individual obstacles to learning as well as modeling to learners how to overcome those obstacles by and for themselves.

Desktop Documentaries: Value in Learning and Assessment?

I'm pretty impressed with this Desktop Documentaries site! I have always had a keen interest in producing documentaries and I have a summer at Duke University's documentary filmmaking school on my to-do list. The topics that I'd like to explore and relate via documentary are all topics in which I hold great passion and interest, of course. The topics themselves drive my interest in documentary production, and the technical process of producing a film is of secondary interest. Development of the technical skills and resources required to communicate information and ideas on a chosen topic in a multimedia documentary would be a great bonus outcome for a learner enrolled in any field of curriculum!

What if we used learner-driven desktop documentary production in the classroom (online or brick-and-mortar) for both learning and assessment? While it would be admittedly difficult to manage a high-quality production of any significant depth or length in the scope of a one-semester course, full documentary production provides a great opportunity for a culminating experience, which typically spans multiple semesters (in secondary and higher educational environments) and can be approached as a team effort. I'm especially fond of any type of learning or assessment that stresses collaborative teamwork skills as opposed to merely competitive learning models. Learning communities form around a shared goal or project, and documentary making can be done completely virtually from a variety of source points around the world by using widely available free technologies and tools.

And for those courses which begin and end in a single semester, mini-documentaries of 3-5 minute duration and a more ad hoc production quality (smartphones, tablets, laptops) are ideal for the learning experience measured in weeks rather than years. Public service announcements, mini-documentaries, sound bites or video blogs/memes produced with educational intent provide real-world context to the learning experience and leave the learner with a tangible outcome perfect for an e-portfolio!

I am adding a documentary section to this blog. I will be adding resources as I find them, so please feel free to share yours with us!

What might your learners gain from creating video documentaries? And what might we gain from them?

Moment in Meme

What If We Flipped ONLINE Learning?

Most of us have heard about flipping the traditional classroom: learners review lecture and do their reading before they come to class! Then homework and projects are completed in the presence of the instructor and peers in the classroom setting, making collaboration and team learning much easier and providing over-the-shoulder instructor support at arguably the most critical phase in the learning process (application of knowledge to assignments, problem-solving and projects, for instance).

But flipping an ONLINE class? How might that work? HERE is a very brief narrative and a fascinating infographic to explain it! 

C. Chase: How Love & Self-Direction Leads to Mastery

I believe this is true for all levels of learning, at all ages!

How does a child become highly skilled at painting, singing, dancing or drawing, without significant input from teachers? One thing my son Andy and I learned early on was the importance of imitating the skillful work of others and falling in love with the creative process. 

This is a drawing that Andy did when he was about 8 years old. He loves to draw, and has been doing it on his own, since he was three. Like Andy I drew for enjoyment several hours a day, since about the same age. No teachers, no art courses, just pencils, paper, free time and encouragement from parents to draw whatever we liked.

For both of us the mastery process was completely self-directed. Andy would spend hours with his favorite dinosaur books, copying the pictures, then making little action scenes or story books. At his age, I would trace and imitate my favorite cartoons, then return to drawing in my own style, creating similar kinds of pictures.

What I remember noticing fairly early on was that every time I traced or imitated a drawing beyond my present level of ability my skills improved. I observed the same thing with my son's drawing ability. I never told him how or what to draw, just encouraged him to copy the pictures he liked.

What we both learned is that a more advanced artist doesn't need to physically be there in the same room to be your teacher. Careful observation, patience, practice and imitation of their work is all that is needed. As skills improve, and you've learned from many different artists, one begins to develop their own unique style. 

In reading about how other artists developed their skills it appears that many discovered the same process. Bob Dylan listen to folk music endlessly, and imitated his favorite musicians. Van Gogh began by copying paintings by others, most great writers were usually first voracious readers. 

Countless hours of practice and engagement seems to be the key to mastering what one loves. In my case, I would draw for about 2 hours every day from age three. Andy did that as well. That's 60 hours a month, over 700 hours a year. By the time he and I were 5 or 6 years old many saw us as "born artists." But few realized how much practice time we were putting into it. 

Think about whatever it is you do extremely well. Were you born with those skills or did you practice and enjoy doing what you love for countless hours? Think about great violin players, singers, dancers, athletes, scientists. No one was born with such skills, they all required an incredible amount of time and practice. Without endless hours of engagement, mastery never happens. 

The point that I feel is important here is that no one knows what a child can or cannot do, if they don't enjoy an activity and haven't put all those hours into it.

Love and enjoyment are an essential part of the learning equation, they are absolutely crucial for high levels of skill and mastery. This may be what Mozart was trying to tell us when he said, “Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

Christopher Chase

The Art of Learning

A MOOC Adrift?

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports today in "A University's Offer of Credit for a MOOC Gets No Takers" that the Colorado State University's Global Campus offered a singular MOOC-for-credit in the subject area of computer science last fall at a dramatically discounted rate ($89 proctor fee, as opposed to $1,050 for a three-credit hour course tuition rate) and they are mystified as to why no one registered for the course!

Some might be tempted to sound the alarms and declare MOOCs dead even before they've had a chance to integrate themselves into mainstream education. But not so fast!

As the article fairly states,

The offer applied to only a single MOOC, in computer science, and the credits might be useful only to students who intended to finish their degrees at Global Campus.

Why would learners sign up for a singular MOOC if they are already midstream with a degree and a course credit system that they can count on? If the credit for the MOOC can't/won't transfer to another institution and students are already set in a degree-seeking academic structure (even in an online context), what's the appeal to that specific set of learners? Is this the right audience of learners for us to view as a litmus for an entire movement? MOOCs-for-credit have the potential to dissolve the walls that limit access to higher education to an entirely new demographic of learners, and yet we're testing their viability in the context of online degree programs without offering an entire degree in the MOOC-for-credit format.

There are other clues about the slow take-off of MOOCs-for-credit as cited by the director of LearningCounts, who shares her disappointment with the lack of interest shown by learners in their program. "The council has not yet advertised its services directly to MOOC students," noted Chari Leader Kelley. With no marketing to the most likely learners, why are expectations set so high?

Is it possible that we're still holding the reins a little too tightly? The market for MOOC learning is there, but its needs must be more comprehensively assessed and addressed if we expect the movement to take off as quickly as many hope. It's possible that our water-testing is TOO tentative if we are watching a singular MOOC-for-credit from one university for guidance on how to direct an entire movement with many complex layers of logistical and operational considerations for both learners and institutions. The context of the MOOC experience doesn't seem to be taken into consideration if we are expecting more traditional learners already enrolled in degree programs to take the lead with MOOCs-for-credit with a singular course in their existing environment. What if those MOOCs were marketed to institutions, departments or faculty, rather than the learners? What if transfer credit agreements were made between MOOC providers and traditional universities for the provision of online content to the universities' learners able to customize their educational experiences with a global course catalog from which to choose? What if faculty at traditional universities integrated MOOCs into course curricula both online and in the classroom? The traditional university can provide the learner the facilitated, SME-driven curatorial educational experience by providing personal faculty support to learners as needed and faculty are freed up to teach online as well as in the classroom with academic technology tools otherwise likely not affordable or otherwise within their reach.

However, when it comes to granting credit to students who take a free-floating MOOC instead of a tuition-based course at a traditional university, institutions remain largely in control of what courses they will abide and how many credits they will allow students to transfer in from such sources.

The American Council on Education, which advises college presidents on policy, has evaluated eight MOOCs—four from Coursera and four from Udacity—and recommended to its members that students who pass those courses should be awarded transfer credits. It remains to be seen how many of those colleges will take the council's advice.

Ten Years of Tracking Online Education: Free Report Download

The Sloan Consortium is generously making available for free download its 2012 report Changing Course: Ten Years of Tracking Online Education. Rather than add to your extensive reading, I will merely point you toward the download and a nice summary of the key findings. But—this was my favorite!

Seventy-seven percent of academic leaders rate the learning outcomes in online education as the same or superior to those in face-to-face.

Take a look!

Moment in Meme

Has the Digital Divide closed?

In the mid-1990s, when the public Internet was young, a large group of social activists realized the positive potential that access to the Web would afford any individual, group or community and they observed huge pockets of our national population who did not have access to all the goodness the Internet had to offer those who could afford expensive hardware, software and access. The term "Digital Divide" was coined to represent the wide chasm of opportunity between the "haves" and the "have-nots" in terms of access to the Internet. For a time, attention to the matter grew and there was a lot more attention in the media given to efforts by individuals and organizations to close that divide.

The unfortunate side of falling hardware prices and more widespread (but still less than ubiquitous) access is that the Digital Divide seems to be falling off our collective radar. Many think the Digital Divide no longer exists, but one need only take a deeper look at the lives and educational experiences of geographically and socioeconomically isolated pockets of our population to see that the divide is still there, still gaping and still in need of our attention and collective resources.

Some folks have not forgotten! In fact, a friend and colleague who works in Durham, North Carolina shared with me a story about a computer recycling organization called Kramden Institute in Durham, North Carolina. Organizations like Kramden Institute acknowledge that the Digital Divide still exists and they are still working diligently to close it. In mid-April, they partnered with technical volunteers from Fidelity Investments for a three-day computer recycling "Geek-a-thon" that placed over 100 computers with low-income youth trainees and refurbished over 250 computers for placement in low-income households. The Kramden Institute notes that each computer serves entire households, so the impact of these computer placements significantly impacts families and communities (in addition to recycling old hardware that would most likely have ended up in a landfill somewhere). 

This group (and others like it*) realizes what many don't: households that can't afford a computer may not be able to afford monthly access either. So these computers come packaged with free, open-source stand-alone educational software that does not require an Internet connection to run (a concept many of our youth may not remember!).

Why is all of this still so important? Well, can you imagine growing up in a household without Internet access in this day and age? Can you imagine the stress and discomfort of trying to keep up with classmates and prepare yourself for college without the ability to hone the requisite computer skills that support nearly every academic endeavor required in high school or college? Digital literacy is every bit as critical and foundational to academic and professional success today as the mastery of reading and math. And yet across our culture, there remains a pervasive attitude that computer access is a luxury to be afforded on a recreational level to those who can afford the price of ownership and access.

It's especially important for us as educators to be cognizant of those who struggling their way out of the Digital Divide and to afford those in need our patience and compassion, as well as our efforts to connect them to needed resources. I have a section of links to free digital literacy training online and I will make it a point to find and post links to resources that can help folks find hardware and Internet access. I know that there are many fine organizations like Kramden Institute still fighting the good fight, but they're not getting enough attention. We need to support their work by bringing it to the attention of our colleagues and neighbors, and by asking ourselves, "Can they do it alone? Is there still need in my community that leaves learners unprepared for a basic academic experience? What can we do to join this fight?" And if you need ideas, let me know! I'm here to help!

*FreeGeek in Portland, Oregon has been around awhile as well. They even franchise their model to communities wanting to create their own FreeGeek operation! Check out the FreeGeek tour on YouTube!

Alabama Educational Technology Conference in June!

Mark your calendars and get your registrations in now! The Alabama Educational Technology Conference is less than a month away! The conference will be held June 11-13 at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex in Birmingham. With over 1,000 expected to attend (and very reasonable registration fees, I might add), this conference looks like the place to be in mid-June!

UPDATE: I am presenting at this conference! Look for me midday on June 12 to present on course certification as a model of formative assessment! Please come!

How Laughing Leads to Learning

Did you know that a little levity in the classroom actually improves learning outcomes? It's TRUE! The American Psychological Association reports that a certain amount of appropriate levity in the teaching and learning process actually improves scores as well as the learner's qualitative perceptions of their learning experiences.

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

(Dr. Maya Angelou, poet and educator)

Moment in Meme

BamaBUG 2013 Academic Technology Conference

On May 31st, the BamaBUG (Blackboard Users Group) will host a one-day academic technology conference on the campus of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Registration is free and you can find everything you need to know HERE.

Special thanks to Linda Skeete for the heads up!

PBS hosts TED

Don't miss it! Tomorrow night at 10e/9c, TED will debut on broadcast television for a one-hour special dedicated to education. Check it out here and be sure to TUNE IN! John Legend will be hosting and there will be some amazing and inspirational talks given by some of the greatest minds working on the crises plaguing education today!

TED talks are always available at TED.com and there are some great theme-based playlists like TED Talks for Teachers on YouTube.

If you haven't yet met TED ... your time has come!

UPDATE: IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, click HERE for the FULL episode!

I loved the whole episode, but especially this talk!

Watch Rita Pierson: Build Relationships With Your Students on PBS. See more from TED Talks Education.